How last night I didn’t strangle that man I do. not. know. He was horrendous! Then at 6am this morning he got up after he had been coffing his guts up for about an hour to then come back into bed and sighed loudly and yawned loudly like a child. Are you f***ing serious?! Shut. Up. Then he would snore. Then coff. Oh... my.... god.... what an absolute ass hole.

7am we pulled ourselves out of bed and got up to get ready, you know we put our stuff out ready the night before to quietly sneak out the room to get ready not to wake anyone up in the mornings because we are considerate people. But this morning I was not feeling kind and considerate of others. So the black out curtains were opened but that still wasn’t allowing enough sunlight in so I turned the main light on and I zipped my bag closed and open and closed and open, and we brushed our hair (trust that makes enough noise!), and didn’t have our whisper voices on and neither did we spray the deodorant outside in the toilet. Oh the huffs and puffs coming from that crap bag was brilliant. We are so sorry for waking you.... NOT.

Mission accomplished, we went downstairs for breakfast and some much needed coffee before the long ass bus ride to Taupo today.

There were more people on the bus this morning, 14 of us. Still no where near enough to justify taking a huge coach 400km up the country. Very spacious though.

The weather was crap but not bothered as we were dry inside. It was an extremely long day driving up to Taupo, we left at 8am and with numerous toilet stops we got to urban retreat at 2pm.

It’s not raining and good news thx the Tongariro crossing is open tomorrow for us to climb! (Maybe no such good news that our pick up time will be 5am!)

Back in Taupo, it feels weird going back to somewhere where you’ve already been and done. Staying somewhere different with a lovely sun garden and the weather is considerably warmer as we recall last time we had to stock up on thermals.

A quick walk around town to stretch the very stiff legs and grab some fresh deli ham for our sandwiches tomorrow ready for the 8 hour hike up through the crossing!

It still baffles me after almost six weeks as to why people insist on going barefoot in public, I mean how unhygienic is it to walk around a supermarket with no shoes on? And some of them even go through the effort of putting socks on so you’d think they’d finish the job off and put some damn shoes on too!?

Such a chilled evening sitting in the garden and cooking some food, an early bed time for that hike is on the cards and the weather is looking good for it too!